PERFECT WORLD | CHAPTER 5
A/N: Can you believe I'm already planning a sequel to this? It's crazy. Anyway, here's chapter 5, and you'll get to see what Sydney meant when she told her father that Sark's imprisonment was her fault. Oh, and the way this chapter went? Guys, it totally wrote itself. For some reason, I have absolutely no control. It just comes and I interpret it the best I can. Not sure if I like that, yet.
\\\ Indicate flashback\\\
* * *
Jack made sure he was fully attuned to his daughter. Her body language, the way her pulse jumped ever so slightly in her throat, the shaky hand that came up to tuck her hair behind her ear, just like her mother. These were all tell signs. Except, instead of lying, these were the signs that she was speaking the truth. He sighed and leaned back in his chair, attempting to put some distance between them.
"So you went to Sloane."
Sydney looked startled by the abrupt change in subject. "I don't really think we should be talking about this right now. . ."
If he'd had any doubts that she had, in fact, gone to Arvin Sloane for help in getting Sark out, they'd just been firmly squashed. "I was referring to," he spoke slowly, carefully, hoping to convey the seriousness of the situation, "When Sark first got abducted. The day of, you had both gone to Sloane, with Lauren Reed. I assume whatever you're speaking of happened then."
Her eyes darted to the video feed and she surreptitiously pressed a button on her watch. "We have three minutes."
Jack nodded.
She took a deep breath and prepared to explain.
* * *
\\\Sark walked into the room with a trace of smirk still on his face, from his encounter with Sloane.
"Hi. We need to talk."
His brows rose. "So talk."
"This morning, we intercepted a message from the Covenant. They have a Rambaldi artifact."
Sark rolled his eyes. "Isn't he dead already?"
She stifled a smile and continued, "It just so happens that they're going to be in the area today, around the time we leave."
The amused expression slowly faded from his face. "I'm not quite certain why you're telling me this."
"Sark, I'm going to take a leap of faith here and ask you to do something. I want you to get inside the Covenant and find out what they have on me, on my past years. In exchange for that, I'll get an immunity agreement negotiated with Langley. You'll be free."
He stared at her with suspicion in his eyes. "You don't have the authority to make such promises."
"I may be out of the loop, but I got my father pulled from solitary confinement. I can sure as hell get you freed from custody."
Razor-sharp as he always had been, Sark asked, "Why me? Why not undergo memory retrieval? Why involve yourself in my plight?"
She sighed and looked away. "Because I know what it's like to lose two years of your life. And even if that were all we had in common, like it or not, your case was given to me. Sark, I've seen you pace in that little glass cell until it made me dizzy. You're just like my mom. You can't thrive in a box."
"Thriving would naturally include killing, you realize that?"
A smirk crossed her features. "If it helps me screw over Lindsay for locking up my father, I don't care if you kill a hundred men."
Sark continued to watch her with midnight colored eyes. They were depthless and she felt like she was on the receiving end of a thousand-yard stare. "That's not true," he whispered softly. "It bothers you, the unnecessary taking of human life. It always has. That's what makes us different."
A shudder passed through her and it was several moments before she could calmly reply, "We're not that different. And frankly, I just don't care anymore."
Sark witnessed the decomposition of Sydney Bristow in a 10-second span. She was completely raw, vulnerable and open to any shots he wished to take at her. Raising troubled brown eyes to his, the question remained, unspoken.
"Yes," he finally said, breaking the silence. "I'll do it."
They did not talk about what would happen to the artifact. They did not speak of his capture and what it would entail. They refused to acknowledge the full consequences of their joint decision.
Sark cleared his throat and reached a hand towards her chest. She moved back and was about to bat him away when he plucked a pen from her jacket pocket and clicked it firmly. Eyebrows raised, he held it out to her. She took it from him, embarrassed, and tucked it away in her briefcase.
He cleared his throat again.
"We should probably let them in," she started, going for the door. He grabbed her arm, uncaring of the fact that he'd invaded her personal space and that lately, very few could do so and still breathe afterwards.
"Are you ready?"
The faintest level of concern in his voice had her flustered. "Of course I am."
He nodded minutely, and looked out the window.
And when Lauren and Sloane walked in, it merely appeared that there had been a slight disagreement between handler and agent.///
* * *
A faint beeping echoed in the hall of the prison cells and father and daughter locked eyes, acknowledging that time was up.
"Well." Jack stood, and replaced his chair. He took his time walking back over to her, eyes memorizing the look on her face as she rose to meet him. "I'm not sure you want to hear this, but standing here right now, you remind me of your mother. And you should know--I love both of you more than you could imagine. I don't want to see you hurt, Sydney. If you can get the results you need--" 'from Sark,' hung unspoken in the air, "--I'll do what I can to help."
He blinked, probably startled that he'd admitted so much, and out loud. Sydney wasn't sure what shocked her more, the admittance of love for her mother, or the fact that he approved of her reluctant partnership with Sark.
Jack turned to leave and she caught up with him, standing before him uncertainly. He opened his arms to her and she went in gratefully. He hugged her tightly, once and she leaned up to whisper in his ear, "I couldn't leave him there, Dad. He did this for me. It's my turn to make sure I hold up my end of the bargain."
"I know, sweetheart. I know."
She watched him walk away and thought of her mother and realized that he probably did know. God, this family was so messed up. Sydney walked back over to her chair and sat back down. She wasn't going to fail him. Not again.
* * *
Sark woke up with something crushing his chest uncomfortably. He attempted to shift positions and nearly blacked out from pain. It came rushing back to him. *Sydney. The Covenant. Rescue. Getting shot. And*, he reached awkwardly in his terribly unfashionable blue jumpsuit to pull out a sheaf of papers, *intel*.
Wincing, he rolled over and managed to pin the papers underneath the mattress. The last thing they needed was for the CIA to get their hands on the document. His shoulder burned and he cursed creatively in Scandinavian.
"I didn't know you could do that do to someone's ankles."
Sark flipped over to see Sydney standing in front of the glass, and was rewarded with more searing waves of pain for his effort. He gritted out, "I haven't ever attempted it, but the world is full of possibilities." Not surprised that she had deciphered his comment--or that she apparently knew enough Scandinavian to get her through the day--Sark tucked away the pain into a far pocket of his mind and carefully made his way over to the glass.
"You look terrible."
She laughed. "You certainly know the way to a woman's heart."
He snorted. "It's not my best line, I'll admit that. But between the two of us, we must make quite a pair." Letting his eyes linger on her longer than necessary, he took in the hollow look to her face, the way she stiffly held her right arm, and how she seemed to be favoring one leg more than the other.
"Have you been cleared by medical services?" Sark asked, still glancing at her legs. It looked like she pulled a tendon, but with pants on and a 5-inch layer of bulletproof glass in between, he really couldn't tell.
Sydney shifted and tried to distribute her weight more evenly. She wound up wincing. "No."
He smirked and folded his arms behind his back. "Perhaps that would be a wise course of action."
"Why Sark," her voice sounded sickeningly sweet to both of them, "are you concerned about me?"
"You're my handler," he smoothly replied, "and somehow I don't think falling asleep in the next meeting with Dixon will have the same results as last time. Besides, I'm really in no rush to see Sloane again."
"I'll see what I can do about that." She looked down the hallway, through the bars, to see two officials motioning to her. A smile briefly lit up her face. "Good news. You now have clearance to spend 15 minutes on the roof."
"Joy."
* * *
She had given him her father's coat. Sark doubted Jack Bristow knew of this, for surely, if he did, a coat would be the last thing on his mind. The man was fiercely protective of his family, Irina had told him that much, and if, for some bizarre reason, he hadn't believed her, Sark had seen it quite a few times for himself. In the beginning of his imprisonment, he had fast learned that Jack was an exceptionally skilled interrogator, and that no methods were off limits for him.
Sark's first several sessions had been very intense, and stayed that way until Jack had realized that he really didn't know where Sydney was. Things had cooled off then, and he had been turned over to someone else. Eventually, they lost interest. He had been unable to remember the last time he'd been seriously questioned after that, but his brief stay with the Covenant had agonizingly reminded him that his inner resolve wasn't nearly as strong as it should have been.
Thankfully, nothing had slipped out, but the chance was always there, and. . . well, he'd rather not think about that right now.
"Are you cold?"
Of course, Sydney had noticed his action. His stuck his hands in his pockets and pretended it was an Armani suit. One thing about being a spy was that you had to have a suspension of disbelief. This often led to having a great imagination, which had very nearly been the only thing keeping Sark alive for the past few months.
"I'm fine, thank you."
And now they were chatting in the 20-degree weather like strangers. *Odd*, he mused. Here he was, with the woman who had come into rescue him when she could have easily left him to die, and their conversation had officially taken a turn into dullsville. He hated it. At the very least, they had always had their banter, something to fall back on when things got too tense, and it hadn't failed them at the worst moments, not even once. And now? It was as if he'd never met her before.
Sydney paused in their circuit of the square roof and walked to the center of the blacktop. He followed. "The audio is weakest here," she explained, whispering from the corner of her mouth. "My mother and I discovered it."
Had it already been that long? Good god, time really did seem to stand still, and then, when you least expected it--bam! It hit you right in the chest and you realized just how hopeless the situation was.
"Did you find anything?"
Her tone was slightly wistful and there was a small light hiding in the back of her eyes. Obviously, she was fighting against getting her hopes up, but they both knew at this point, that anything would be worth it. Saying as much in CIA territory, of course, was not the wisest thing. Sark wondered how long the documents would be safe underneath his mattress.
Probably for a while. After all, they hadn't yet located her jacket and it had been almost a week. He gave it another six or seven days. The papers would have to be gone before that, just in case.
He was silent, considering how to put into words what he'd gotten without sending alarms off in everyone's mind. "There was something," he said at last. "But it wasn't of the usual variety," his eyes flitted away to the guards for a moment, and locked back on hers. "Rather strange, in fact, considering."
Despite the fact that he'd been almost painfully vague, most of the tension that she'd been holding in all morning escaped her body as if she'd just let out a giant sigh. 'You did find something,' she mouthed almost unnoticeably.
Sark started their walk up again, and they made two more passes before he nodded slightly. He glanced at her sideways, wondering what she was thinking at that very moment.
A smile had drifted onto her lips and there was gratitude in her velvety brown eyes. It stirred something in him and he decided, then and there, to set about making that look in her eyes a permanent thing. A man could get used to that, he knew. The feeling that you had made someone's whole world turn again. He felt that, and while unprepared for it, recognized that it wasn't a bad thing. She made a move as if the reach out to him and her hand hung halfway there, in the space between them. Any action of that sort would see them both with Uzis in their back and so he stared at her outstretched hand silently.
A beat or two later, he stuck his own out and saw her smile. They didn't touch, didn't come close to it, but moving their hands in unison as if they had been joined and were shaking on a deal. It was one of the most peculiar things he'd ever done, and yet--it seemed beyond normal for them to do so.
Her smile widened.
His mind flitted back to last night and he remembered that hand on his forehead, brushing back his closely shorn hair. Something had been triggered inside both of them, then.
Oh yes. They were in this together now, and clearly relying on the other for results.
Trust? You'd better believe it. What a pity they hadn't developed it before, and had such difficultly giving it to others. Strange that their alliance had taken such a route to get to where they were now.
Distracting him from the curious route his thoughts were taking was the loud foghorn of the guard tower. His time on the outside world was once again up. With a rueful smile, Sydney walked back to the front gate, needing to go through the security process first. Sark went shortly after and they were escorted back to his cell.
It wasn't until the guards had gone that he allowed himself to think about the plan he'd formed while walking on the roof. A fool-proof way to get the papers to Sydney, but perhaps not before they were censored. At any rate, she would need someone to read them with.
He sat back down on the cot and watched as she began to walk away. Once out of sight, he called, "Sydney?"
She turned and walked back to see him holding the jacket in his hands lightly. "I believe your father might just want this back."
He sure as hell didn't want it. That was one Bristow garment that could be directly returned to its rightful owner. He folded it so that it could fit in the little deposit box and she unlocked the top on her side, pulling it out.
"Thanks."
Sark knew what she wasn't saying. His eyebrow went up in return, reminding her that they had a show to put on for the people upstairs.
"Don't mention it."
She half-heartedly glared at him and her heels echoed in the hallway as she walked away.
He went back to his cot and sat on it lightly, fingers tracing the outline of where her jacket was flattened underneath. He smiled to himself and laid flat on his back, knees to the ceiling. So maybe sleep wasn't the best idea. Irina always said meditation worked wonders.
Time to put it to the test.
* * *
A/N: Can you believe I'm already planning a sequel to this? It's crazy. Anyway, here's chapter 5, and you'll get to see what Sydney meant when she told her father that Sark's imprisonment was her fault. Oh, and the way this chapter went? Guys, it totally wrote itself. For some reason, I have absolutely no control. It just comes and I interpret it the best I can. Not sure if I like that, yet.
\\\ Indicate flashback\\\
* * *
Jack made sure he was fully attuned to his daughter. Her body language, the way her pulse jumped ever so slightly in her throat, the shaky hand that came up to tuck her hair behind her ear, just like her mother. These were all tell signs. Except, instead of lying, these were the signs that she was speaking the truth. He sighed and leaned back in his chair, attempting to put some distance between them.
"So you went to Sloane."
Sydney looked startled by the abrupt change in subject. "I don't really think we should be talking about this right now. . ."
If he'd had any doubts that she had, in fact, gone to Arvin Sloane for help in getting Sark out, they'd just been firmly squashed. "I was referring to," he spoke slowly, carefully, hoping to convey the seriousness of the situation, "When Sark first got abducted. The day of, you had both gone to Sloane, with Lauren Reed. I assume whatever you're speaking of happened then."
Her eyes darted to the video feed and she surreptitiously pressed a button on her watch. "We have three minutes."
Jack nodded.
She took a deep breath and prepared to explain.
* * *
\\\Sark walked into the room with a trace of smirk still on his face, from his encounter with Sloane.
"Hi. We need to talk."
His brows rose. "So talk."
"This morning, we intercepted a message from the Covenant. They have a Rambaldi artifact."
Sark rolled his eyes. "Isn't he dead already?"
She stifled a smile and continued, "It just so happens that they're going to be in the area today, around the time we leave."
The amused expression slowly faded from his face. "I'm not quite certain why you're telling me this."
"Sark, I'm going to take a leap of faith here and ask you to do something. I want you to get inside the Covenant and find out what they have on me, on my past years. In exchange for that, I'll get an immunity agreement negotiated with Langley. You'll be free."
He stared at her with suspicion in his eyes. "You don't have the authority to make such promises."
"I may be out of the loop, but I got my father pulled from solitary confinement. I can sure as hell get you freed from custody."
Razor-sharp as he always had been, Sark asked, "Why me? Why not undergo memory retrieval? Why involve yourself in my plight?"
She sighed and looked away. "Because I know what it's like to lose two years of your life. And even if that were all we had in common, like it or not, your case was given to me. Sark, I've seen you pace in that little glass cell until it made me dizzy. You're just like my mom. You can't thrive in a box."
"Thriving would naturally include killing, you realize that?"
A smirk crossed her features. "If it helps me screw over Lindsay for locking up my father, I don't care if you kill a hundred men."
Sark continued to watch her with midnight colored eyes. They were depthless and she felt like she was on the receiving end of a thousand-yard stare. "That's not true," he whispered softly. "It bothers you, the unnecessary taking of human life. It always has. That's what makes us different."
A shudder passed through her and it was several moments before she could calmly reply, "We're not that different. And frankly, I just don't care anymore."
Sark witnessed the decomposition of Sydney Bristow in a 10-second span. She was completely raw, vulnerable and open to any shots he wished to take at her. Raising troubled brown eyes to his, the question remained, unspoken.
"Yes," he finally said, breaking the silence. "I'll do it."
They did not talk about what would happen to the artifact. They did not speak of his capture and what it would entail. They refused to acknowledge the full consequences of their joint decision.
Sark cleared his throat and reached a hand towards her chest. She moved back and was about to bat him away when he plucked a pen from her jacket pocket and clicked it firmly. Eyebrows raised, he held it out to her. She took it from him, embarrassed, and tucked it away in her briefcase.
He cleared his throat again.
"We should probably let them in," she started, going for the door. He grabbed her arm, uncaring of the fact that he'd invaded her personal space and that lately, very few could do so and still breathe afterwards.
"Are you ready?"
The faintest level of concern in his voice had her flustered. "Of course I am."
He nodded minutely, and looked out the window.
And when Lauren and Sloane walked in, it merely appeared that there had been a slight disagreement between handler and agent.///
* * *
A faint beeping echoed in the hall of the prison cells and father and daughter locked eyes, acknowledging that time was up.
"Well." Jack stood, and replaced his chair. He took his time walking back over to her, eyes memorizing the look on her face as she rose to meet him. "I'm not sure you want to hear this, but standing here right now, you remind me of your mother. And you should know--I love both of you more than you could imagine. I don't want to see you hurt, Sydney. If you can get the results you need--" 'from Sark,' hung unspoken in the air, "--I'll do what I can to help."
He blinked, probably startled that he'd admitted so much, and out loud. Sydney wasn't sure what shocked her more, the admittance of love for her mother, or the fact that he approved of her reluctant partnership with Sark.
Jack turned to leave and she caught up with him, standing before him uncertainly. He opened his arms to her and she went in gratefully. He hugged her tightly, once and she leaned up to whisper in his ear, "I couldn't leave him there, Dad. He did this for me. It's my turn to make sure I hold up my end of the bargain."
"I know, sweetheart. I know."
She watched him walk away and thought of her mother and realized that he probably did know. God, this family was so messed up. Sydney walked back over to her chair and sat back down. She wasn't going to fail him. Not again.
* * *
Sark woke up with something crushing his chest uncomfortably. He attempted to shift positions and nearly blacked out from pain. It came rushing back to him. *Sydney. The Covenant. Rescue. Getting shot. And*, he reached awkwardly in his terribly unfashionable blue jumpsuit to pull out a sheaf of papers, *intel*.
Wincing, he rolled over and managed to pin the papers underneath the mattress. The last thing they needed was for the CIA to get their hands on the document. His shoulder burned and he cursed creatively in Scandinavian.
"I didn't know you could do that do to someone's ankles."
Sark flipped over to see Sydney standing in front of the glass, and was rewarded with more searing waves of pain for his effort. He gritted out, "I haven't ever attempted it, but the world is full of possibilities." Not surprised that she had deciphered his comment--or that she apparently knew enough Scandinavian to get her through the day--Sark tucked away the pain into a far pocket of his mind and carefully made his way over to the glass.
"You look terrible."
She laughed. "You certainly know the way to a woman's heart."
He snorted. "It's not my best line, I'll admit that. But between the two of us, we must make quite a pair." Letting his eyes linger on her longer than necessary, he took in the hollow look to her face, the way she stiffly held her right arm, and how she seemed to be favoring one leg more than the other.
"Have you been cleared by medical services?" Sark asked, still glancing at her legs. It looked like she pulled a tendon, but with pants on and a 5-inch layer of bulletproof glass in between, he really couldn't tell.
Sydney shifted and tried to distribute her weight more evenly. She wound up wincing. "No."
He smirked and folded his arms behind his back. "Perhaps that would be a wise course of action."
"Why Sark," her voice sounded sickeningly sweet to both of them, "are you concerned about me?"
"You're my handler," he smoothly replied, "and somehow I don't think falling asleep in the next meeting with Dixon will have the same results as last time. Besides, I'm really in no rush to see Sloane again."
"I'll see what I can do about that." She looked down the hallway, through the bars, to see two officials motioning to her. A smile briefly lit up her face. "Good news. You now have clearance to spend 15 minutes on the roof."
"Joy."
* * *
She had given him her father's coat. Sark doubted Jack Bristow knew of this, for surely, if he did, a coat would be the last thing on his mind. The man was fiercely protective of his family, Irina had told him that much, and if, for some bizarre reason, he hadn't believed her, Sark had seen it quite a few times for himself. In the beginning of his imprisonment, he had fast learned that Jack was an exceptionally skilled interrogator, and that no methods were off limits for him.
Sark's first several sessions had been very intense, and stayed that way until Jack had realized that he really didn't know where Sydney was. Things had cooled off then, and he had been turned over to someone else. Eventually, they lost interest. He had been unable to remember the last time he'd been seriously questioned after that, but his brief stay with the Covenant had agonizingly reminded him that his inner resolve wasn't nearly as strong as it should have been.
Thankfully, nothing had slipped out, but the chance was always there, and. . . well, he'd rather not think about that right now.
"Are you cold?"
Of course, Sydney had noticed his action. His stuck his hands in his pockets and pretended it was an Armani suit. One thing about being a spy was that you had to have a suspension of disbelief. This often led to having a great imagination, which had very nearly been the only thing keeping Sark alive for the past few months.
"I'm fine, thank you."
And now they were chatting in the 20-degree weather like strangers. *Odd*, he mused. Here he was, with the woman who had come into rescue him when she could have easily left him to die, and their conversation had officially taken a turn into dullsville. He hated it. At the very least, they had always had their banter, something to fall back on when things got too tense, and it hadn't failed them at the worst moments, not even once. And now? It was as if he'd never met her before.
Sydney paused in their circuit of the square roof and walked to the center of the blacktop. He followed. "The audio is weakest here," she explained, whispering from the corner of her mouth. "My mother and I discovered it."
Had it already been that long? Good god, time really did seem to stand still, and then, when you least expected it--bam! It hit you right in the chest and you realized just how hopeless the situation was.
"Did you find anything?"
Her tone was slightly wistful and there was a small light hiding in the back of her eyes. Obviously, she was fighting against getting her hopes up, but they both knew at this point, that anything would be worth it. Saying as much in CIA territory, of course, was not the wisest thing. Sark wondered how long the documents would be safe underneath his mattress.
Probably for a while. After all, they hadn't yet located her jacket and it had been almost a week. He gave it another six or seven days. The papers would have to be gone before that, just in case.
He was silent, considering how to put into words what he'd gotten without sending alarms off in everyone's mind. "There was something," he said at last. "But it wasn't of the usual variety," his eyes flitted away to the guards for a moment, and locked back on hers. "Rather strange, in fact, considering."
Despite the fact that he'd been almost painfully vague, most of the tension that she'd been holding in all morning escaped her body as if she'd just let out a giant sigh. 'You did find something,' she mouthed almost unnoticeably.
Sark started their walk up again, and they made two more passes before he nodded slightly. He glanced at her sideways, wondering what she was thinking at that very moment.
A smile had drifted onto her lips and there was gratitude in her velvety brown eyes. It stirred something in him and he decided, then and there, to set about making that look in her eyes a permanent thing. A man could get used to that, he knew. The feeling that you had made someone's whole world turn again. He felt that, and while unprepared for it, recognized that it wasn't a bad thing. She made a move as if the reach out to him and her hand hung halfway there, in the space between them. Any action of that sort would see them both with Uzis in their back and so he stared at her outstretched hand silently.
A beat or two later, he stuck his own out and saw her smile. They didn't touch, didn't come close to it, but moving their hands in unison as if they had been joined and were shaking on a deal. It was one of the most peculiar things he'd ever done, and yet--it seemed beyond normal for them to do so.
Her smile widened.
His mind flitted back to last night and he remembered that hand on his forehead, brushing back his closely shorn hair. Something had been triggered inside both of them, then.
Oh yes. They were in this together now, and clearly relying on the other for results.
Trust? You'd better believe it. What a pity they hadn't developed it before, and had such difficultly giving it to others. Strange that their alliance had taken such a route to get to where they were now.
Distracting him from the curious route his thoughts were taking was the loud foghorn of the guard tower. His time on the outside world was once again up. With a rueful smile, Sydney walked back to the front gate, needing to go through the security process first. Sark went shortly after and they were escorted back to his cell.
It wasn't until the guards had gone that he allowed himself to think about the plan he'd formed while walking on the roof. A fool-proof way to get the papers to Sydney, but perhaps not before they were censored. At any rate, she would need someone to read them with.
He sat back down on the cot and watched as she began to walk away. Once out of sight, he called, "Sydney?"
She turned and walked back to see him holding the jacket in his hands lightly. "I believe your father might just want this back."
He sure as hell didn't want it. That was one Bristow garment that could be directly returned to its rightful owner. He folded it so that it could fit in the little deposit box and she unlocked the top on her side, pulling it out.
"Thanks."
Sark knew what she wasn't saying. His eyebrow went up in return, reminding her that they had a show to put on for the people upstairs.
"Don't mention it."
She half-heartedly glared at him and her heels echoed in the hallway as she walked away.
He went back to his cot and sat on it lightly, fingers tracing the outline of where her jacket was flattened underneath. He smiled to himself and laid flat on his back, knees to the ceiling. So maybe sleep wasn't the best idea. Irina always said meditation worked wonders.
Time to put it to the test.
* * *